


Binding Occultation

by DRAGOquing



Category: The Venture Bros
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:26:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26875156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DRAGOquing/pseuds/DRAGOquing
Summary: Mars, a tenacious antagonist with a penchant for being over the top, has created the Planetary Council under the Guild of Calamitous Intent’s supervision. The Council works together as a family, arching their enemies with strength and pride.Yet things are beginning to fall apart in the family as more of the members grow complacent in their own abilities.However, an unlikely antagonist comes to Mars and inquires for his help to work together to arch a protagonist he knows everything about: Doctor Venture.
Kudos: 1





	Binding Occultation

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Venture Bros fic, so we’ll see how it goes! It’ll take a while to unveil everything that I have planned, but it’ll be worth it. Thanks for sticking with me :3c

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me and my homies hate Captain Sunshine.

Two years. It had been two years since the two had first met.

He was desperate at first, but dedicated. He needed help, so he called forth for henchmen. A mewling antagonist came to his aid with guns blazing, being almost as enthusiastic as him.

He had a name: Cole. But his name was just a number then: number 37. He was rising through the ranks faster than anyone could imagine. And least of all _him_ , who would not this henchman again for years.

~ ~ ~

“We must prepare, henchmen!” The flare of his wings caught everyone’s eyes. The scowl of a response was even stronger from the men working below. “The Ventures are going off on some silly little vacation; we must strike now!” Out of the corner of Cole’s eyes, he saw Doctor Girlfriend (though he knew her on a first name basis) roll her eyes.

37 was about to do something called a “ballsy move.”

“Monarch, Sir!” They cawed out, breaking the antagonist’s arduous cackle. “Why exactly are we attacking them now?”

The great butterfly turned hot on his heels, eyes squinting at the only person that grated voice came from. He was curious at what Cole’s mind held, but was even more jealous of it. He hesitated. “Because they are leaving the safety and comfort of their home! Their guard is down!”

“On the contrary.” 37 stepped up to his vacant throne, wrapping his hand around one of the wings. “Their bodyguard would be more alert than ever. Their compound will be guarded by machine, but that isn’t a physical man. If it’s mechanical, it can be shut down. ...or broken, whichever is easier.”

Skeptical, he asked, “And why attack when no one is home?”

“I have given my reasonings, and more so. If their systems are down, and upon returning they do not notice, we are given yet another opportunity to strike.”

“But what if they fix it?” Called out another henchman. Number 24, Cole knew him as.

“Then we are to fall back and strike again at another time. One inconvenience fixed today will be our undoing on another.” He looked down to his left arm, unsheathing his sharp blade. It almost grazed the top of his hand, but he knew how to wield it well. “I wait for your judgement, Monarch.”

He stood there with a clouded look in his eyes, deciding whether or not to go through with a plan that was not his own. “Yes.” He almost whispered. “Yes! We strike at dawn when the compound is empty!” The villain’s wings lowered back into his cape. “Henchmen, prepare the cocoon! We will fly there tonight!”

Cole sighed, catching the glance of Sheila out of the corner of his eyes. The solemn look she bore said it all too well. They were going to fail again by Monarch’s judgement. 37 walked over to her, slow enough not to draw suspicion, but fast enough to where he looked like he was always with her.

Cole had an interesting outfit. His wings were larger than everyone else's, excluding the Mighty Monarch himself. 37’s hair was too strange to work with the normal henchmen’s attire, as his long and fluffy hair clumped up too much with the almost rubber texture of the henchmen’s suit. Dyed red from the tips to the natural hue of his dark brown hair, his hair looked constantly ablaze. Whenever he walked into a room, he was the star of the show whether he liked it or not.

Cole brushed back his hair, and cautiously knelt down to Shelia’s height. As 37 opened his mouth to speak, she turned to him, and said, “He took that rather well.”

“More so than last time.” He chuckled.

“Are you going to let him run the mission?” Sheila turned off her computer, focusing her attention on the henchman.

“Like he’ll let me take control. I think just maybe I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“You saved him from another episode of grief, Cole. This mission will have an interesting effect on the place.”

“I hope it does. It’s been getting rather dreary.”

~ ~ ~

“Mars!” Mercury shouts, hopping across the orrery with one flap of his wings. “Captain Sunshine is approaching from the east!”

“Again?” He slams his fist down, curling in his claws. “Unprovoked as well! We haven’t been on an official arch since earlier this year.”

“We have been on minor archings.” Saturn calls from the back of the room, thudding forward with her great staff. Saturn, the second in command, and experimental cheetah-person, swings around the great to station of planets, hopping next to Mars’ side. “There is no reason for his astute aggression, as it wasn’t towards him.” 

Mars stands, refitting the sheathes on his arms. Cole is ready for war. “Meddlesome insect!” He turns to Mercury, who stands at the ready near the wind tunnel. “Mercury! We are to fly up there and greet him ourselves.”

“I can barely carry you!” He cries back with disdain. “You better make this quick.”

“Of course I will!” He smiles back, flashing his canines with glee. “If we’re lucky, he’ll die rather quickly.”

Two years really does a lot to a person. In the span of time that he worked for the Monarch and now, he had changed rather dramatically. He was trying to file a registration with the Guild of Calamitous Intent to become an Antagonist, but that did not happen. He was kidnapped before it was fully registered. The poor soul was brought... brought somewhere. He can’t remember much. All he knows is that Saturn and Mercury came from this event, and that they do not remember much either. Or maybe they do.

Whatever had happened had turned him into what he is today: a demonic presence in which malice flows out of all pores. So Cole decided to band together with other Antagonists to form a family. The Planetary Council had formed due to the resilience of what the eight had gone through. Mars was the ringleader, and now stands as the captain and advisor for the group. They went to the Guild of Calamitous Intent, and got recognized as more than just their villainous personas. At the time, Mars was Infernus, the demonic hell blazer that took on minor protagonists from time to time. With raw strength alone, he rose in standing with the guild, achieving the standing of an EMA level 9 with his partner in crime, Saturn. 

Saturn, who at the time was known as the Shifting Sands, was a ruthless magician who used the powers of magic to smite down her foes. She alone is an EMA 5. Mars and Saturn are planning to take Tenning Ceremony to form an even stronger bond together. They only await the Guild’s approval. The two formed the Planetary Council, and ever since, they had been arching appropriate protagonists that either they had found, or the Guild had assigned. And today is no different. Captain Sunshine: Venus’ greatest enemy. And, because he is Venus’ enemy, he is the Council’s enemy.

“Uranus,” Mercury waddles up to Mars, tapping his talons on the floor. “We’ll need your wind magic to get up to Captain Sunshine. There’s no way I’m carrying Mars up there on my own.”

“Of course.” Uranus gets up from her chair, grabbing her crystalline staff from beside her. The staff glows faintly in her hands. “Alright you two, get into the wind tunnel.” She scoffs, before continuing, “We could try to make or buy giant fans for this tunnel. You would be able to launch at any whim you had, Mercury.”

“Maybe,” he chuckles. “But magic is way more reliable than electronics.”

“Well, you’d be surprised.” She flashes a grin she walks over to the wind tunnel, clanging her staff on the floor. Mercury hops over, scratching his talons on the sleek tile floor. “But I suppose you are right for the most part.”

“Hey!” Venus caws from her post at navigation. “If you don’t kill him, I’ve got dibs.”

“We both do,” Mars responds in a sing-song voice. “That bastard doesn’t deserve to see the light of his harrowed _sunshine._ ”

Uranus pushes Mars towards the tunnel, harping out a quick, “He won’t die if you don’t go out there.” She laughs for a moment, before charging up her staff. “I’m certain the Guild won’t get on our ass if they’re missing him.”

Mercury unfurls his wings again, turning back to scrutinize us. “He’s not in the Guild. Nor the OSI. I don’t know what he’s in.”

Mars shudders, stepping into the warm chamber of darkness. “Hey, Crow?” His voice echoes around him, launching back at him at full force. “Is it against Guild rules to kill a non-Guild Protagonist or Antagonist?”

Crow, or Neptune, the leader of spies looks up from his screen. The henchmen beside him glance to him in fear. Crow doesn’t speak much. “No.” Mars heaves out a sigh of relief. “It is against normal law.”

“Dammit.” His shoulders drop, and his brows furrow. Louder, he announces, “Does anyone in here have any objections to me killing the ‘Protagonist’ Captain Sunshine?” He turns back to the eyes of a few dozen henchmen and Council members starting like deer in headlights at him. “Anyone? No?” Wide-eyed blinks are his response. “Okay, cool. Just asking.”

The wind chamber’s exit begins to shimmy and open, rumbling a deep and haunting tone. The Council’s stationary base is equipped with all manner of defensive items, weapons, and built in features to repel an attack from adversaries. Objectively, the wind tunnel was everyone’s favorite. Using the power of central heating, and all of Jupiter’s income, it can launch Mercury into the air at hundreds of miles per hour... granted that Uranus gives the engine air to function. At the end of the tunnel, to which the open doors reveal, is a drop off into dead space, with the ground a staggering sixty feet below. The Council _did_ make this for Mercury.

“Alright, hop to the end, Mars.”

“ _What—_ ”

“The only way we can do this is if you get to the end. With enough force, I can lift you.”

He turns around, looking to him as a silhouette. “There’s no fucking way I’m doing that.”

“You want to hurt Sunshine, right?” Mercury tilts his head. “We gotta jump to do it.”

Mars skulks slowly to the edge of the tunnel, quite possibly regretting everything he has ever done. “God, we should’ve just used artillery.”

“Yeah,” He positions himself at the start of the tunnel, hunching down to where his wings flutter perpendicularly to the ground. “But that’s your mistake. Uranus, we’re ready.”

Mars hikes up his shoulders, stopping just before the drop off. Below him is a vast expanse of forest that leads towards the Malice neighborhood. He takes in a breath, watching the houses in the distance as they are engulfed by the sun.

“Hold on, Mars,” Uranus says, tapping her staff against the floor. “I’m casting the spell!”

On command, a violent gale of icy wind shoots through the tunnel. The heat of the tunnel warms up the moving air, causing it to twist into a winding cyclone. Just after, the tell-tale steps of talons racing against the floor echo to Mars’ ears. He tenses up, keeping as still as possible to let Mercury get an accurate hit.

“Hold!” He yells, flapping his wings. Mercury slams into Mars, grappling onto his shoulder armor pieces. With great speed and drag, they launch out of the tunnel. Almost instantly, they start dropping in height. Mercury flaps his wings violently, huffing out air in a struggle. “This was _not_ a good idea!”

Out in the open, the two planets flail in a waning sunset, struggling to keep aloft. Most of the buildings and trees to west are shadowed, but to the east, where they fly toward, is lit with an red-orange light. Everything looks as if it was on fire, which would be poetic if this area was not prone to fires. Sometimes Malice, the neighborhood for supervillains, keeps its own title.

“We need to get him out of here,” Mars snarls. “We only need to scare him off.”

“God—” Mercury turns completely around, attempting to fly around the observatory. “You think he’d learn his lesson!”

“Yeah, but he and Venus have such a deep hatred for each other. It’s almost customary at this point.” 

The bird dives around the right side of the building, heading straight towards a hovering man dressed up like a rainbow. Sunshine has his hands over his hips, looking like an angry sun.

“Listen,” Mercury chirps. “Once he’s done and dealt with, we’ve got another target.”

“And?” Mars eggs him on.

“Sargent _Hatred._ ”

“What?!” He cackles, swishing his tail. “Hatred?”

“Neptune brought it up. He said he’d be a better arch than the non-Guild affiliated Sunshine.”

“That’s right!” Mars interjects. “He’s in the Guild like us.”

“I’m a bit surprised Venus didn’t bring it up first due to his... differences.”

“No, I heard Hatred is on medicine. It’s experimental, but—”

“Are you two just going to hover there and chatter?” Sunshine boisterously announces, giving a distraught look to the both of them. “I’ve come here on _business_ , you know.”

“I’m sorry.” Mars holds up his hands. “We were just engaging in a polite conversation about another Guild member. I didn’t know your patience was smaller than Wonder Boy.”

At this, the rainbow man sibilates. “Don’t you dare mention Wonder Boy!” Captain Sunshine rears up his fist, arcing his body for a mid-flight fight. “Not after _what you did you him!_ ”

“ _Us?_ ” The Warmonger snarls. “What about _you_? Jesus, you think we’re stupid? That we don’t know what you’ve _done_ to him?” Cole takes in a breath, exhaling for a few overly long seconds. “Besides. What did we do to him? I haven’t seen him in months.”

“Don’t play coy with me, Infernus!” He strikes out, forcing Mercury to dive to escape. “You _killed him!_ ”

At this, Mercury almost drops Mars. “Killed him? _Killed him?_ Who the fuck do you think we are? We’re the highest ranking group in the Guild of Calamitous Intent, watched by thousands of other costumed people, and you think we killed your little... _sidekick?_ We’d have everything revoked! We’d be a laughing stock!”

“Also we just don’t kill. You have lives, and we respect that.” Mars interjects. He grumbles, “However insignificant or _disgusting_ they might be.”

“Then why did I get a package that was his _corpse?!_ ” His raged cries echo around the dome of the orrery, and Mars can feel something well within him.

“What..? His... _corpse?_ His body was in your _mail?_ ”

“I would only assume it was you, Council. Venus practically killed me last time we fought.”

“Didn’t I just say we don’t kill? Pretty sure I did.”

“Then who killed Wonder Boy?!” He floats toward Mercury, glaring daggers to the planets.

And that’s when things got weird.

A tiny streak zips across the sky, shooting through Mars and Mercury’s peripherals, until it stops. It stoped directly on Captain Sunshine, near his head. The duo tries to turn and look, but are met with a shadow that entirely blocks out the sun. Mars can feel Mercury faulting, and for good reason. The two aren’t sure what cause this could be, except for—

“Mercury, land! Quickly!” Mars shakes violently in his grasp as the sudden rush of wind assaults them like a storm. “We need to get down!”

“You don’t have to tell me twice!” He folds in his wings, arcing harshly their descent. As they fall, Mars grapples onto his arm guards, readying them for attack. On his command, they unsheathe, allowing two sharp blades to flow forth at his fists. Mercury looks almost worse for ware as he struggles against the strength of the winds; his wings keep bending to the wave of the storm, which to no surprise, hurts him. The ground lay sprawling below, darkened as well by the great eclipse. For a moment, Mars looks upwards. He sees Captain Sunshine falling with them. Unlike the two planets, he is out of it, completely unconscious. Mars’ ears fall.

“Mercury, I might need to mention to you that Sunshine is _cascading with us!_ ”

Mercury looks up, “He _what?!_ ” which moves his body weight a little too far, and shoves them into another current. In this west-blowing stream, they collide into the falling sun, and begin to deluge toward the ever approaching ground. Among the screaming that the two emit also rings a horrible, howling laughter. This horrible sound rings in their ears, drowning out the sound of the whipping wind.

From the ground below, Mars can see a few of the Planets running from the base to the general area below him. Uranus is among them, staff raised high above her in trepidation. Mars trusts them, certainly, but his trust in Mercury is almost entirely void due to him forgetting the straight forward rules of flight: Wind sucks, and it _will_ fuck you up. Though, rather suddenly, Mars loses complete trust in Uranus. As she taps her staff upon the grass, the air around them starts to get increasingly cold. Mercury hisses, trying to grab Mars with his talons in a desperate spiral. A secondary blast of wind throws Sunshine away from the duo, for better or for worse.

In a better turn of events, Mars is able to grab onto Mercury’s left leg. Shuddering from both the wind and added weight, the first planet squawks, flaring open his wings as far as he can. He catches the cold draft and looks below to find the falling hero. “You know— Why am I saving him?” Mercury says. “He’s the one who came here trying to hurt us.” He simply dives down.

“I don’t understand,” Mars ponders. “Who would kill Wonder Boy? He was a child!”

“Someone not in the Guild or OSI. God, someone who wanted to put him out of his misery.” He draws out his wings, it approaching the ground slowly. Ahead of them, Sunshine slams into the ground with an unsatisfying and heavy thud. “At least we made it safely.”

“Tell me how a maelstrom and an object eclipsing the sun makes us safe? I’d like to point that out.”

“We have a welcoming party.” Mercury prepares for their landing, splaying out his wings to create drag.

“Mars! Mercury!” Saturn chirps, swaying her tail from side to side. “You’re alright!”

“We are.” Mercury shakes his talons, forcing Mars to drop to the ground. He barrels into a roll while the bird flies feet overhead, turning around to land.

“That was strange to say the least,” Mars says, looking back to find where Sunshine had crashed. “Whatever happened to him wasn’t us, that’s for sure. Mercury and I don’t have anything like that.”

“It wouldn’t have been us either,” Saturn purrs. “We were all indoors until you started to fall.”

“Everyone was accounted for, I’m sure. That’s strange.”

The cat looks above to the eclipsing object in the sky, narrowing her eyes. “It is safe to assume that it was that thing.” She points a claw toward it. “Have you ever seen something like that before?”

Mars shakes his head “Not that I remember. It’s safe to assume that belongs to a villain, though.”

“We need to get one of those!” Jupiter, the small yet mighty inventor cackles. “A flying base!” Everyone stops their idle chat to look at him. “What?”

“You know that thing?” Uranus asks, tapping her staff quickly. A ring of ice forms below it, weaving through the grass blades.

“Of course I do! That’s the Mighty Monarch’s base.” 

Saturn looks to Mars. Uranus glares at Jupiter. Jupiter looks up at Mars. Uranus looks to Mars. Mars looks up at the Cocoon, the Monarch’s arial base. His ears fall, and he drops his arms. The others look between him and the flying base.

Jupiter scuttles to Captain Sunshine, cawing, “Hey, I know what knocked him from the sky!” The four turn to look at him, watching him pick up a dart with Monarch’s signature... a monarch as the feather of balance. “This dart is... I think it might be a henchman’s dart. I’m not sure if there’s a difference.”

Mars swirls back, snarling, “How the _fuck_ do you know so much about the Monarch?” A twinge of fire flicks through his dusty hair. “It’s like you henched for him, or some shit.”

“Once. Wasn’t for me, so I decided to make my own name.” He flourishes his arms, laughing. “Now I’m here!”

“God,” Mars hisses. “He isn’t in the Guild, is he?”

“Safe to say ‘no.’” Saturn responds.

“Good, so he just shot down and decommissioned our non-Guild rival. We don’t take that blame.”

“So what are we going to do?” Uranus ponders, ushering Jupiter away from the body. “There are too many unanswered questions.”

“Well, for one,” Mars holds up his hands. “I’m going to the Monarch. He is here for a reason. Though I’m not sure what.”

“I’m with you.” Saturn places a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s find out together.”


End file.
